Steve McIntyre have posted yet another update, this time with entries about The Google Summer of Code and discussion focussed on issues pertaining to the forthcoming Etch release
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Hey people, me again; time for another update…

The Google Summer of Code[0] is over, and final reports have beensubmitted. Most of our students worked well right up to (and in somecases beyond) the end of the summer, and hopefully we'll see someuseful results from their projects coming to light soon. Expect a moredetailed summary of what was achieved, coming soon to a d-d-a listnear you.

Sarge r3 and the third d-i beta have both been released, the latterbasically on schedule, the former slightly late and with a couple ofsmall known issues[1]. Those issues should hopefully be fixed in r4after a short interval. Etch d-i development seems to have been verysuccessful to this point, adding major new features, yet moretranslations and the usual set of bug fixes. Kudos to the team!

Meanwhile, Damog reported on his June trip to Cuba[2], and localenthusiasts in Colombia held their first Mini-Debconf[3] lastmonth. We clearly have a growing community of Free Softwareenthusiasts in Latin America. More events are planned – let's supportthem as much as we can.

In the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of discussionfocussed on issues pertaining to the forthcoming Etch release. Therelease process itself is under scrutiny, and we've also seen somespirited debate about how we should deal with the increasingly commonphenomenon of loadable binary firmware images for hardwaresupport[4]. They're probably going to run for a while yet. In themeantime, Manoj has just announced the start of voting for aconstitutional GR which might change how our assets arehandled[5]. Please go and read the proposal and state your opinion.

Debconf 7 preparation is continuing on; the local team in the UK havejust had a big meeting this last weekend in Edinburgh[6] and made alot of progress on organising for next summer. We're expecting to becatering for about 400 people in Scotland; the early plans are firmingup nicely and it looks set to be another successful Debianconference. I hope to see you there!

On the conference front, I've been invited to attend a Free Softwareconference at La Laguna University in Tenerife next week[7] to talkabout Debian. I should be covering a great deal of ground there in the90 minutes allotted, from general aspects down to detailed technicaldiscussions. It should be good fun, and I hope to engage more interestin what we're doing. There's even a suggestion of a BSP at theconference if we can work out the details.

Continuing further on that theme, we're heading into the planned BSPmarathon[8] to help kill those RC bugs and make Etch releasable. Totry and help out, I'm going to be continuing on with a mini tour ofEurope after the conference, heading over to Utrecht on the 29th ofSeptember and Zurich on the 6th of October. There are several partiesannounced already, and more are being planned. Please, dive in andlet's work together to get Etch out on time this year!

— Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com Armed with “Valor”: “Centurion” represents quality of Discipline, Honor, Integrity and Loyalty. Now you don't have to be a Caesar to concord the digital world while feeling safe and proud.